A Matter of Style
by Tie-dyed Trickster
Summary: There is no such thing as a static culture - they grow and change with the people who form them. This is as true for the saiyan culture as any other, though some signs of change are easier to spot than others. Part 22 of the Geta!verse
_Takes place a couple months before 'A Brief History of the Saiyan Race in Recent Times,' when Tarble is close to fifteen and Broly is twelve. Also, we'll be in space for one more week, then we're heading back to Earth again._

Bardock groaned as he lay down. He'd just come back from a mission – a raid on one of Frieza's base satellites – and, while it had been successful and while he had gotten through it without sustaining enough injuries to require a regen tank, he was still feeling sore and very, very tired. He didn't regret his actions in forming the Resistance, but he looked forward to the day they eradicated the last of the Cold Empire from the universe, got revenge for the destruction of their home planet and the death of most of their race, and chose a new king so Bardock could hand this whole mess over to someone else. Toma maybe, or Paragus – they had good heads on their shoulders and had adapted well to the changes their race had had to undergo.

Well, maybe not Paragus. He grinned to himself. The man was high strung as it was, putting him in full control would probably give him a nervous breakdown. Which would be hilarious, but counter-intuitive to helping their race continue to progress. Toma, then, or maybe Celipa. Whoever it was, Bardock was looking forward to just being a soldier again. Commanding a squad was one thing, but close to five hundred saiyans – more, actually, since there'd been a few brats born since the disaster? No, that kind of leadership just wasn't for him…

He was just starting to drift when an internal warning bell rang in his head, causing his eyes to snap open. He'd learned to listen to these little twinges over the years, and this particular twinge was one he was all too familiar with. Groaning again, he grabbed his scouter off the floor next to his mattress and pulled it on. He didn't even need to open his eyes to activate the familiar code.

"This had better be good, Bardock, because I know for a _fact_ that Rutaba sent you to get some sleep, as you apparently saw fit to not get any on your mission – _again_! We have suspended animation in those pods for a _reason_ , you know!"

The scarred saiyan snorted. "I can't make plans or coordinate shit for you morons if I'm unconscious, Paragus."

"Yeah, well, you can't do those things if you're _dead_ , either!" Paragus snapped, "Did that ever occur to you or do you have that bandana on so tight the common sense can't get through?!"

"Gods, Paragus, shut the hell up so I can tell you what I need to, and then I'll go to sleep like a good little brat." He got a long-suffering sigh in response, which he chose to interpret as "please, regale me with your great knowledge, oh illustrious leader, without whose kindness and mercy I would be so many atoms fragmented among the remains of our dead planet," and continued. "I just wanted you to know, Tarble and Broly are up to something. Again."

Bardock took his scouter back off, curses still emanating from the earpiece, and wriggled into a more comfortable position with a blissful sigh. Really, it was the little things in life…

 **OoOoOoOoOoO**

His pacifist son and the crown diplomat weren't all that hard to track down. There were twenty saiyans on the ship, including the boys, Bardock, and himself. All Paragus had to do was turn on his scouter and find the two lowest power levels on the ship. This in itself made him swear harder. He should have had to find the highest or second highest power level, but no, trust his son to figure out not only how to control his power level, but to keep it as low as possible unless he needed to do otherwise. Really, if it weren't for the tail, it would be hard to tell the boy was saiyan at all! Pinching the bridge of his nose, Paragus swore again, more softly this time. He loved Broly, he really did – he'd been willing to defy his king for him when the boy was just a baby and, gods help him, he still felt the same. But it would be nice if the boy acted his race just a little more…

Walking through a doorway, he found his quarries in the room beyond. Tarble was crouched next to Broly, grinning. At fourteen, he'd started his first spurt recently and was already a few inches past his previous three feet. King Vegeta had been an impressive figure at six foot two, but both princes had taken after Queen Ruta in height. Or, it was assumed Prince Vegeta would have taken after his mother. Not that they'd had a chance to find out…

Next to Tarble, Broly was kneeling on the floor and sniffling a bit, but was smiling at himself in a small, metal mirror and fingering a golden ring in one ear. In fact, there was one in each of his ears, and Paragus knew for a _fact_ that they had not been there last time he saw his son.

Tarble looked up at him as the adult saiyan entered. "Hi, Paragus! We pierced Broly's ears!"

Broly looked up at his father as well, taking his hand away and proudly tilting his head from side to side to show off his new accessories. "It didn't hurt a bit!" he said happily, the beads of tears still in the corners of his eyes giving lie to this statement. "Don't they look nice?"

Paragus buried his face in his hands briefly. "Yes, Broly, very nice. But saiyans don't wear jewelry."

Tarble frowned. Paragus couldn't see it, but he could hear it in the young teen's voice. "That's not true – Celipa has an earring, too!" his tail lashed behind him.

Paragus glared balefully from between his fingers at the teenager who should have been a warrior prince, but was growing up to be something rather different. "Celipa's earring is different and you know it."

"Okay, true," Tarble conceded, "But just because we've never worn much ornamentation before doesn't mean we can't start now! We're developing a new culture, one that involves more than power and warfare, and the way we dress is part of a race's culture. We've already started adopting bits of clothing from other races – you've got on an Aneshi tunic under your armor."

Paragus growled and resisted the urge to tug at the offending garment, which reached mid-thigh and was a mottled teal, with sleeves that reached his elbows. "We're getting new clothes because the old ones wear out and we can't always find proper saiyan ones while fighting a war!" subconsciously he touched the red cloth tied around his right bicep. The sight had Tarble reaching for the knot of the red kerchief at his neck and Broly fingering his scarlet sash.

"Maybe so," Tarble admitted, "But the other tunics you have are Aneshi style, too, and you've been wearing them for ages now!"

The older saiyan glared. "The Aneshi are our allies, and the cloth they make can handle us changing to Ozaru without shredding."

"We rarely use the Ozaru without advanced planning these days, so you could easily have clothes of any sort of fabric," the teen countered, "And the Aneshi are happy to provide clothes in saiyan styles for us. Admit it, Paragus – you just like the Aneshi styles. And you're not the only one who's been branching out – Bena wears mostly Aneshi stuff these days as well, and Ockrar's been favouring Silvorn-"

"Are you going to list every saiyan in the Resistance that's turning divergent, or just the ones on this ship?" Paragus crouched in front of the teen. "Bardock dresses like a proper saiyan, so do Celipa and Toma, and I notice the pair of you are as well."

Tarble looked down at the gold and grey armor he wore over blue small armor. "They like wearing this sort of thing and so do I. I never said we were abandoning our old styles, just expanding on them."

Paragus grunted and turned to his son. "And you, Broly?"

The boy looked down at his black and purple clothes. While Tarble's armor had full sets of panels on the shoulders and waist, Broly's had simple straps on the shoulders and merely covered his upper torso. Then again, Broly's armor was more a formality, whereas Tarble was one of the most breakable things on the ship… Running a hand over the purple panel on his stomach, Broly looked up at his father shyly.

"I haven't found anything I like better yet. But I like my earrings – they're pretty."

Paragus slumped. He knew, from the stubborn set of Broly's chin, that the earrings were there to stay, and nothing he said was going to change that. And the saiyans were changing, admitting that other races were people too, and that they might even be people with stuff worth copying. Sometimes he was okay with this – he really did prefer his tunics to the old shirts he used to wear – but other times… it felt like pieces of his race were trickling through his fingers, slipping away before he had a chance to see if they were pieces he wanted to let go of or not.

And these boys, who hadn't really ever known anything but these chaotic, changing times… He had been bemoaning his son's lack of saiyan-ness earlier, but in some ways the boys exemplified their race, surviving and thriving in this confusing universe they found themselves in, effortlessly assimilating bits of new cultures they liked while discarding the rest… They were the proof that there was hope for the saiyans as a race, them and the other children born to the Resistance. It wasn't like they'd raised themselves, after all.

With a chuckle and a sigh, Paragus shook his head. "They're going to miss you in negotiations, Lord Tarble, when you get too far into your spurt to want to do anything but eat and fight."

"Well, my head's clear enough for now!" Tarble hopped to his feet. "Though, now that you mention it, I do feel like sparring! Come on, Broly, let's go see how many of my bones Celipa'll break this time!"

So saying, he zipped out of the room, Broly running along after him.

"DAMMIT, TARBLE!" Paragus leaned out of the room and shouted after the boys, "THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF SPARRING!"

"WHATEVER!"

Groaning, Paragus buried his face in his hands again. Those boys were going to be the death of him. Provided Bardock didn't beat them to the punch, of course…

 **OoOoOoOoOoO**

' _Dammit Tarble' is the unofficial motto of the Resistance at this point. It should also be noted that Celipa's earring isn't different or okay because she's female, more on that in a later segment of this series._

 _And yes, I just spent the majority of a fic talking about clothes. Clothing is a very visual, obvious component of culture, easy to recognise and discuss, and that's what I wanted to talk about in this – how the saiyans are developing a new culture – so it worked well. But you know what would be even easier? If I could draw this as a comic or a manga. Seriously, verbally describing saiyan hairstyles and armor and stuff is way harder than I thought it would be! :/_

 _This is actually a pretty typical example of interaction between Paragus and Bardock. And, in case anyone's wondering, they're just friends in this series. They're pretty good friends at this point. They're just… very saiyan about it, for obvious reasons. ;)_

 _As for Tarble and Broly's clothes – Tarble's dressed like Vegeta when Vegeta first comes to Earth, but the white bits of his armor are grey. Broly's design I got from kotenka1984's gallery on deviantart – she has a beautiful picture of adult Broly in saiyan armor called 'the saiyas are coming' ( kotenka 1984 . deviantart art / saiyas-are-coming -98266980), and it suits him perfectly to my mind, so that's what he's wearing for now, with a slightly less extreme sash and only the earrings in regards to jewelry. I love this person's art, though, especially some of the outfits they come up with for characters. Plus, their style is adorable! …and they may or may not be an enormous reason why Broly is the way he is in this fic, as opposed to, say, not in it at all…_

 _Tarble's 'fragility' amuses me, because he could take on the majority of Earth's population and not break a sweat. Ah, the relativity of strength… No one goes out of their way to break anyone's bones on the ship (usually), but they're saiyan and they have regen tanks – they don't go out of their way to_ _ **not**_ _break anyone's bones, either. Tarble, quit being so gung-ho about your safety. Or, actually, continue, I have as much fun with that as with making Broly be all shy and docile. Nice to see he's got a bit of spunk hidden in there, though._

 _Also, I looked it up – King Vegeta really is tall! And I would say that such a discrepancy in height between parent and child is unbelievable except, well... my own father is 6'2", and I may or may not be considerably less than that. And shorter than my mom to boot. __

 _A lot of people refer to the tight blue clothes Vegeta tends to wear as 'spandex.' This bugs me more than you can possibly imagine. Partially because I tend to picture that stuff being waaaaay more durable than spandex really is, but mostly 'because it does.' So, since I've always thought of it as being another type of armor, albeit less durable than the chest plates, I call it 'small armor.'_


End file.
